Refugee Crisis for EU: Financial Times

EU foreign ministers tried calling a meeting, at Greece’s request, to address a new wave of Syrian refugees after conflict has intensified in Syria’s province of Idlib. Turkey has indicated it would no longer restrict refugees from reaching Europe. Turkey’s president suggest the policy is due to the lack of international support for refugees. "European countries have resisted Russian pressure to normalise relations with the Assad regime in Syria and release large-scale reconstruction funds, although Hungary has upgraded its diplomatic presence in Damascus," the article from Financial Times reports. Turkey shelters about 4 million refugees, preventing them from heading to the EU in exchange for EU funding. This deal reduced the number of migrant arrivals to Europe from 1 million in 2015 to fewer than 125,000 in 2019. Greece and Bulgaria, neighbors of Turkey, are calling up security forces and applying maximum border deterrence to prevent massive refugee arrivals. Another article suggests that Turkish officials express more anger with Greece than Bulgaria. EURACTIV reports that Bulgaria’s prime minister failed to organize a summit, but received commitment from Turkey’s president to prevent migrants from heading to Bulgaria. – YaleGlobal